leftie wrote:What did the first forum mean to me? It helped me accept and come to terms with who I am. This community helped me come to terms with my sexuality, spent countless hours supporting me and telling me what I was feeling was ok. Ninja was here when i felt I couldnt turn anywhere else, and for that I'll be forever grateful. In many ways, it saved my life. This was the first (and for a long time) only place in my life i felt safe to be my true self (i was very active in handsome men thread hehe). It was also a community, where I learned and grew as a person. Through debate and discussion, it opened my mind and my eyes to new ideas.

that is awesome. i remember what seemed like ages ago, but i think that is pretty cool thaat ninja could be somewhat of a cornerstone for you. right on!

I arrived on the forums through Ninja Main, as many of us did, I guess. Originally, I was just looking for a good site to watch series and movies for free. Discovering the boards, though.. best thing ever.

I remember very clearly that time of my life. I'd just moved to Lille, in the north of France, basically on the other side of the country from where I grew up. I'd been accepted to a great school, but I had a hard time acclimating myself to the city. I hated the atmosphere, the weather, the greyness, the cold. I hated my school, the teachers and the way things were taught there. Even more, I hated my fellow students. I was not like them, I did not get along with them, and I couldn't fucking stand to hear them spew their bullshit (and believe me they had bullshit to spew).

And then I got to discover the boards. And suddenly, on a tiny piece of virtual space, I met people I could actually converse with. Fucking C&D man, I'm always coming back to that. Having informed and well thought out debates. Actual fucking discussions about actually fucking topics, where people did not only scratch the surface in order to make polite conversations to shine in society, but actually thought hard about their arguments, and how they could counter other people's arguments in an intelligent manner. Finding the boards helped me through an immensely painful time of my life, when I felt so inappropriate and out of place that I thought I could die the next day and it would not make a difference to any fucking one in the world.

In the boards, I saw a place where I could learn, even though it was not a traditional repository of knowledge like a library or a university. It was so much more, uncensored (except for the trolling, duh), built from the base. Community. That feeling of belonging man. You don't find that everywhere... I did here.

And then, there was the whole piracy thing. The Manifesto. The day I heard Phara's voice on that podcast. The way she addressed those slimy fucks. So open, so honest, and so fucking hopeful in that revolutionary act. So much promise in that podcast. From that moment, I felt a fucking kinship with her, like no other. Then the raid happened, and we lost her for the time. I kept following her as much as I could through different ways. Then she got out and gave birth to Ninja Evo, and that fucking sense of belonging came right back.

What did/does the first forums mean for me? What does Ninja Evo mean to me today? Fucking hope man. That tiny light at the end of the tunnel, that maybe everything is not lost, that the Internet can actually make the world a better place. There is an ideal, a fucking dream, a fucking utopia behind the internet and the way it connects all of us together. Ninja is the best side of the internet. It's what the web should have been all around, what it could be again if enough people saw that fucking light.

I had a hard time wanting to register to a site like yours at the time. I was seeing who was watching my internet traffic, and I didn't like it. Not you guys, i knew you were above board. I just saw the boards also as truly talented artists, and I felt mine were not up to snuff. I think it was mostly youth and being unsure of my direction. Now I've realized that a direction is a constant journey of weaving roads.

I remember, mostly, the bad ass photos my friend would download from your art forum. I was always impressed. His whole trailer was ninja pin ups. We also both extensively used the main streaming forum.

Its strange I've been staring at this thread pondering what it is i should write. I remember all the times on Alluc and when NV was just starting up but around about that time i just disappeared off the scene. I suppose its more so what the people of the first forum did for me rather than what the first forums did for me. That in itself is fairly simple and that is give be the confidence to truly be myself despite all the bs that gets thrown around all the time. For that i will always have a soft spot in my heart for this place. Hell i'd probably still be stuck in my room 24/7 never talking to anyone if not for here. XD

I had just stumbled into my twenties when I joined the first time on NV and through interacting with various people through regular sessions on Skype whose original nicknames I won't mention for fear of embarrassing them, I broke out of my shell and found I had a lot more to offer to the world than I'd thought. It was a regular haunt of mine and I enjoyed it immensely for there was so much going on in the forums that I found within me a sort of creativity which so awakened the becoming of my eventual self.